Astrophysicists are waiting to see what the sun will do next, and how the Earth's climate might respond. The sun has been the least active in decades. Actually, it’s in its dimmest phase in a hundred years.
This is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age. That was an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, and lasted from about 1300 to 1850. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age was between 1645 and 1715. It was linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice. Canals in Holland routinely froze solid. Glaciers in the Alps covered whole villages, and sea ice increased so that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
For hundreds of years scientists used the number of sunspots to trace the sun's roughly 11-year cycles of activity. Sunspots indicate intense magnetic activity on the sun's surface. Solar storms send bursts of charged particles hurtling toward Earth.
Changes in the sun's activity affect earth in other ways, too. Research has developed a case that the sun has a bigger influence on earth's climate than many theories have predicted.
That throws the theories of the sky-is-falling-down climate pessimists who are anti-autos, anti-industry, and anti-industrial development into a cocked hat. Along with the cap & trade movement.
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